Saturday, September 20, 2008

We need flowers in our lives. Never go to Publix without coming back with an armful of flowers and the National Inquirer. Did you know that the National Inquirer's subscription price is $150 a year? I am thinking of subscribing. You can't read Spinoza all the time. lee


From: lee de cesare [tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]

Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 8:53 PM

To: 'april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jennifer.falliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'meelia@sdhck12.fl.us'; 'Marilynbrown@tampatrib.com'; 'Letitia'; 'tash@sptimes.com'; 'rgoudreau@tampatribune.com'; 'Gene Siudut'; 'patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com'; '. Don.johnson'; 'Sandy.stewart'; 'Alice.loeb@sd.hc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sandi.katvaia@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Kathy.olson@sd.hc.k12.fl.us'; 'Kirby.hart@sd.hc.k12.fl.us'; 'Kirby.hart@sd.hc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sherrie.sykes@sd.hc.k12.fl.us'; 'Vernon.korn@sd.hc.k12.fl.us'

Subject: Progress in the Schools in the treatment of teachers as the core of education

Ms. Elia: You must invite this wonderful principal down cited in the NYT article below to give a presentation to the Hillsborough County School Board, the CTA, and interested members of the public so that she can teach the local school cadre how to treat teachers with respect and generosity. I think your behavior in these areas explains your ubiquitous unpopularity in the school system, so you should listen closely to Principal Heller.

One area that earns especial animosity from the teachers and from the public for you is your greed: your conive to milk every last penny out of the taxpayers to fatten your paycheck and pension payoff. This behavior causes revulsion. The principal of NYC US 324, Ms. Heller, could teach you some lessons in generosity and civility. You need them.

My bet is that you are not only unpopular with the teachers and students but that you are also covertly unpopular with the board and your administrative staff. They just lack the guts to show this sentiment. The board is a feeble crew whose fecklessness the taxpayers don’t know about, or they would turn them out. The staff got its jobs for unprofessional reasons so that its members are in chronic fear of losing their jobs unless they kiss your tootsies, and this condition generates covert revilement of you.

Inviting this splendid Ms. Heller principal to speak at a community event sponsored by the administration, school board, and CTA so that the whole school family and members of the public can hear how she and her teachers cooperated to share bonus money for their 324 school’s A-plus performance would catalyze a whole new zeitgeist in this forlorn Hillsborough County school system badlands. This unhappy school district has languished in the hands of you and your gutless complicit school board as well as those who preceded you and it for many a long and joyless year to the detriment of education and civility in this forlorn clime.

Lee Drury De Cesare


I wonder if the Hillsborough Schools' CTA's phlegmatic head has the moxie and smarts to do something like this. I love this principal at the end of the article. Are there any like her in the HC schools? I am going to find out her address and try to write her a commendation. I will put the address on the Web if I find it for anyone else who wants to comment this fine gal. lee



City to Give $14.2 Million in Bonuses to Teachers at Schools With Improved Report Cards


Go to PS 324 online. There's a place to send an email to Ms. Heller and the teachers. lee

M.S. 324 - Patria

Janet Heller, Principal

21 JUMEL PLACE, MANHATTAN, NY 10032
Phone: 212-923-4057


Ms. Heller: My four children began grammar school in Flushing before we moved to Florida. PS 155 I think it was. They got good starts in that school.

I read with delight that you and your teachers got some bonus money from the board of education for your excellent performance at PS 324. Well done. I was a teacher before I retired--college English, and I always cheer when teachers do well. Teachers are my gang.

The board and administration treat teachers badly here in Hillsborough County, Florida. So I am glad to see you treat your teachers so well.

I like your generosity in sharing your bonus. That sets a good example for us all.

Congratulation and thank you for your good work and that of all your teachers and students.

lee drury de cesare

*
E-Mail
New York Times

Article Tools Sponsored By
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: September 18, 2008

Teachers at 89 elementary and middle schools will receive bonuses of several thousand dollars each, based on the progress their schools made on report cards released this week, Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced on Thursday. The bonuses, which total $14.2 million and will go to slightly more than half the 160 high-poverty schools the city deemed eligible, are part of Mr. Klein’s efforts to boost pay-for-performance programs in the city’s schools.

A dozen principals at those schools were awarded $25,000 bonuses — the largest ever given to school administrators by the city — for placing in the top 1 percent among the more than 1,000 schools receiving grades this week.

Under an agreement reached with the city’s teachers’ union, which is strongly opposed to individual merit-pay programs, each school that earned the bonus got a pot of money to distribute as it chose. In most schools, the bonuses were spread evenly for classroom teachers, with several giving less to special-education aides and other staff members. A few schools constructed more elaborate systems, like basing bonuses on extracurricular activities.

Schools that met targets set by the Education Department last year received amounts equal to $3,000 for each union member, while schools that reached 75 percent of their targets received $1,500 per union member. Schools that fell below 75 percent but still maintained an A on the report card were also awarded $1,500 for each member.

Despite their past squabbles over other merit programs, Mr. Klein and the presidents of the unions representing teachers and principals presented a united front on Thursday, repeatedly talking about collaboration between school leaders and staffs.

“People are in it together — they are rowing the boat together,” Mr. Klein said. “It’s an affirmation for their community, which works very hard to move their kids forward. They feel a sense of passion and commitment, and now they have an affirmation and that’s all to the good.”

Approval of this program by Randi Weingarten — head of the city’s United Federation of Teachers as well as the American Federation of Teachers, one of two national unions — is an important symbol, and she said on Thursday that she would be willing to support similar initiatives around the country.

Ms. Weingarten has taken care to emphasize that she views the school-based bonuses as different than merit pay, because they do not, as she has said, “pit teachers against each other.”

“If this becomes one of the choices where it’s collectively bargained the way we did it here, or there’s real voice in the nonbargaining states, we’ve always said this should be one of those options,” Ms. Weingarten said. “But it can’t be a top-down model, where it’s imposed on people, because even the best top-down model imposed on people doesn’t work.”

At Middle Schools 319 and 324, which share a building in Washington Heights in Manhattan, classroom teachers each received roughly the same amount, regardless of which subject they taught or how many after-school activities they took part in.

“For us, it was not even a question,” said Ysidro Abreu, the principal of M.S. 319, who received a $25,000 bonus. “We knew that everyone here was important to the success, and we wanted to reward everyone equally.”

At Bronx School of Science Inquiry and Investigation, the staff constructed an elaborate system that essentially set up two tiers of rewards, with all union members receiving at least $2,000 and those who do extra activities like supervising clubs, writing grants and teaching on Saturdays getting an extra $1,786.

“At last it’s a way for us to recognize people that go above and beyond,” said John Barnes, who helped design the system as principal of the school and has since moved to Bronx Early College Academy, where he is earning an extra $25,000 to take over a troubled school. “There are rare opportunities to give people the kind of compensation they deserve. The truth is they deserve a lot more.”

Janet Heller, the principal of M.S. 324, said that the school’s chapter had voted unanimously to reward each staff member with roughly 5 percent of average salary, so that teachers received $3,600 and school aides, $1,200.

“Everyone thought that the teachers are here until 8 o’clock at night and writing the lessons plans and worrying about can their kids read,” Ms. Heller said. Noting that a large chunk of her $25,000 bonus would be eaten by taxes, Ms. Heller said that she planned to donate another $6,000 to the school for field trips and other special events — and that, even though they got their own bonuses, she was considering rewarding her teachers with gift certificates for a massage.

“They really might need it,” she said. “I have to think of something to thank them with.”



Friday, September 19, 2008

Now That's More Like It!


I wonder if the Hillsborough Schools' CTA's phlegmatic head has the moxie and smarts to do something like this. I love this principal at the end of the article. Are there any like her in the HC schools? I am going to find out her address and try to write her a commendation. I will put the address on the Web if I find it for anyone else who wants to comment this fine gal. lee

City to Give $14.2 Million in Bonuses to Teachers at Schools With Improved Report Cards


Go to PS 324 online. There's a place to send an email to Ms. Heller and the teachers. lee

M.S. 324 - Patria

Janet Heller, Principal

21 JUMEL PLACE, MANHATTAN, NY 10032
Phone: 212-923-4057


Ms. Heller: My four children began grammar school in Flushing before we moved to Florida. PS 155 I think it was. They got good starts in that school.

I read with delight that you and your teachers got some bonus money from the board of education for your excellent performance at PS 324. Well done. I was a teacher before I retired--college English, and I always cheer when teachers do well. Teachers are my gang.

The board and administration treat teachers badly here in Hillsborough County, FLorida. So I am glad to see you treat your teachers so well.

I like your generosity in sharing your bonus. That sets a good example for us all.

Congatulation and thank you for your good work and that of all your teachers and students.

lee drury de cesare

*
E-Mail
New York Times

Article Tools Sponsored By
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: September 18, 2008

Teachers at 89 elementary and middle schools will receive bonuses of several thousand dollars each, based on the progress their schools made on report cards released this week, Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced on Thursday. The bonuses, which total $14.2 million and will go to slightly more than half the 160 high-poverty schools the city deemed eligible, are part of Mr. Klein’s efforts to boost pay-for-performance programs in the city’s schools.

A dozen principals at those schools were awarded $25,000 bonuses — the largest ever given to school administrators by the city — for placing in the top 1 percent among the more than 1,000 schools receiving grades this week.

Under an agreement reached with the city’s teachers’ union, which is strongly opposed to individual merit-pay programs, each school that earned the bonus got a pot of money to distribute as it chose. In most schools, the bonuses were spread evenly for classroom teachers, with several giving less to special-education aides and other staff members. A few schools constructed more elaborate systems, like basing bonuses on extracurricular activities.

Schools that met targets set by the Education Department last year received amounts equal to $3,000 for each union member, while schools that reached 75 percent of their targets received $1,500 per union member. Schools that fell below 75 percent but still maintained an A on the report card were also awarded $1,500 for each member.

Despite their past squabbles over other merit programs, Mr. Klein and the presidents of the unions representing teachers and principals presented a united front on Thursday, repeatedly talking about collaboration between school leaders and staffs.

“People are in it together — they are rowing the boat together,” Mr. Klein said. “It’s an affirmation for their community, which works very hard to move their kids forward. They feel a sense of passion and commitment, and now they have an affirmation and that’s all to the good.”

Approval of this program by Randi Weingarten — head of the city’s United Federation of Teachers as well as the American Federation of Teachers, one of two national unions — is an important symbol, and she said on Thursday that she would be willing to support similar initiatives around the country.

Ms. Weingarten has taken care to emphasize that she views the school-based bonuses as different than merit pay, because they do not, as she has said, “pit teachers against each other.”

“If this becomes one of the choices where it’s collectively bargained the way we did it here, or there’s real voice in the nonbargaining states, we’ve always said this should be one of those options,” Ms. Weingarten said. “But it can’t be a top-down model, where it’s imposed on people, because even the best top-down model imposed on people doesn’t work.”

At Middle Schools 319 and 324, which share a building in Washington Heights in Manhattan, classroom teachers each received roughly the same amount, regardless of which subject they taught or how many after-school activities they took part in.

“For us, it was not even a question,” said Ysidro Abreu, the principal of M.S. 319, who received a $25,000 bonus. “We knew that everyone here was important to the success, and we wanted to reward everyone equally.”

At Bronx School of Science Inquiry and Investigation, the staff constructed an elaborate system that essentially set up two tiers of rewards, with all union members receiving at least $2,000 and those who do extra activities like supervising clubs, writing grants and teaching on Saturdays getting an extra $1,786.

“At last it’s a way for us to recognize people that go above and beyond,” said John Barnes, who helped design the system as principal of the school and has since moved to Bronx Early College Academy, where he is earning an extra $25,000 to take over a troubled school. “There are rare opportunities to give people the kind of compensation they deserve. The truth is they deserve a lot more.”

Janet Heller, the principal of M.S. 324, said that the school’s chapter had voted unanimously to reward each staff member with roughly 5 percent of average salary, so that teachers received $3,600 and school aides, $1,200.

“Everyone thought that the teachers are here until 8 o’clock at night and writing the lessons plans and worrying about can their kids read,” Ms. Heller said. Noting that a large chunk of her $25,000 bonus would be eaten by taxes, Ms. Heller said that she planned to donate another $6,000 to the school for field trips and other special events — and that, even though they got their own bonuses, she was considering rewarding her teachers with gift certificates for a massage.

“They really might need it,” she said. “I have to think of something to thank them with.”

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Public Information Request



Ms. Cobbe: I have been trying through your office to get a copy of the pamphlet on the behavior of new members to the board by Dr. James Hamilton.

As I recall, you said that "nobody seems to know anything about it."

I am sure the board and Mr. Gonzalez know about it for they got a copy. I know this for sure because I discussed the quality of the writing in it with Mr. Gonzalez. That was before I filed an ethics charge with the Florida bar against Mr. Gonzalez. We are not as cordial now, so we no longer discuss the quality of writing. Mr. Gonzalez was an undergraduate English major and hates Swinburne, but that's all I know about the purview of his writing interests.

I wrote a memo to the board and asked its members for a copy of the document penned by Dr. Hamilton in which he told them, among other things, how to dress and in which he made various and sundry errors in the English language despite his purported doctorate from the University of Florida. I didn't hear from one, the board's usual disinterest in the public if they are not a candidate in a current election.

I have most recently written a request to Ms. Elia for the instant document. Please check with her for it for I am sure she will give it to you since she knows she must provide citizens with public-information requests.

Thank you for your help. I look to see a copy of this document shortly.

lee drury de cesare
15316 Gulf Boulevard 802
Madeira Beach, FL 33708

copy to Ms. Elia, Mr. Gonzalez, and all board members

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ms. Elia's Poor-mouthing As Usual


From: lee [tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]

Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 10:38 PM

To: 'melia@sdhhc.k12.fl.us'

Cc: 'doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jennifer.falliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Marilynbrown@tampatrib.com'; 'rosemarygoudreau@tampatribune.com'; 'paultash@sptimes.com'; 'Letitia'; 'Ken'; 'Gretchen.Saunders@dhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Wynne.Tye@dhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Cathy'; 'Connie.Milito@dhc.k12.fl.us'; 'David'; 'Gwen'; 'Gene Siudut'; '/\linda.cobbe@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'dan.valdez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'

Subject: RE: Elia's latest news

Ms. Elia:

This money message below does not mention your recently putting on the public dole Dr. James Hamilton. He had a top job in the school system despite his comparative illiteracy, not being able to tell the difference between homophones “you’re” and “your.” This cozening continued during and after his retirement dithering.

When he was not willing to retire when he was supposed to and inserted his name with a caret above his replacement Mr. Otero’s in pencil on the Web, you created him a boutique job with a powerful title for $140,000 a year while he put off departure. A clerk told me you put his name on this made-up job before it even went on the books. Then after consuming $70,000 of that taxpayer cushion, he disappeared ostensibly into retirement at last, and you did away with the job.

Suspicious, I inquired of the Public Affairs office whether Dr. Hamilton perhaps still worked for the schools. Yes, of course he did. You had conjured him another tax-paid sinecure as school lobbyist in Tallahassee. He gets $65,000 a year added to his bloated pension for double-dipper status. He thus joins Ms. Edgecombe and Dr. Lamb in this disgraceful, greedy rip-off of taxpayers.

The Hamilton employment did not come off the consent-calendar conveyer belt for public scrutiny. The last time that a school board member asked for an item to come off the consent calendar for discussion, Kurdell jumped on the board member Griffin for asking for the privilege of reviewing an item and called her “disloyal to the staff.” Candy Olson joined Kurdell in castigating the board member who asked for the item to come off the conveyer belt of the consent agenda.

The item concerned the board policy of no-bid contracts. After the heated discussion, only Valdes joined Griffin in doing away with no-bid contracts. Lawyer Gonzalez joined the no-bid board members in endorsing no-bid contracts. One would expect him to do so. His firm has held the board-lawyer sinecure for 37 years on a no-bid good-ol-boy back-slapping contract.

The fellow who got this no-bid contract that Griffin asked to discuss was a former administrator on his first job as a contractor after retirement, yet Cathy Valdez held forth on how his reputation all over the state for doing excellent work was sterling.


Kurdell and Olson are selective in their choice of items to be concerned about. Both were on the school board when Mr. Erwin was tortured by Lennard and Hamilton among others because Mr. Erwin tried to get attention paid to the criminal activities going on in the schools. Kurdell and Olson knew about the crime on school property as did all the ROSSAC administration, which was annoyed that anybody would mention these criminal activities that they considered just the cost of doing business and no impediment to their keeping their bloated-pay jobs and elevated status as important people of the community. When one considers that most of the administrative staff’s terminal degrees are in early childhood, one understands why its members joined Dr. Earl the Pearl Lennard in torturing Erwin and colluding to get him fired without his pension. No place else would these feeble scholars find such a jobs racket as exists in the Hillsborough county administrative system.

My question is how do you dare write this disingenuous statement of your struggle to balance the budget to the teachers in which you tell them they get a mere two percent raise and imply they should be grateful for that little bit of money? Have you fired Dr. Hamilton from his Tallahassee featherbedding taxpayer rip-off job yet to save money in this economic downturn that you peddle to the teachers to excuse their pitiful raise? If not when will you fire him because of the budget crisis you invoke to the teachers?

Dr. Hamilton wrote a document in which he instructed the board in decorum in doing their jobs. He even advised them how to dress in a leap in insolence despite of his appearing to look like an unmade bed himself, wearing pants which bagged low and contained nothing. I would like to have a copy of that document by Dr. Hamilton under the public-records law. All board members have it as well as Mr. Gonzalez. I know Mr. Gonzalez to be in possession of it because I talked to him about the writing. Please pass it Ms. Cobbe to get a copy it for me.

Don’t put a comma after “past” (I marked it). You cut off a restrictive adverbial trailing clause.

Lee Drury De Cesare

From: William Birdsall [mailto:montolino@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 6:12 PM
To: lee de cesare
Subject: Elia's latest news



* Date: September 12, 2008
* To: All Employees
* From: MaryEllen Elia
* Subject: Budget Update - Salary Increase Proposal
*
*
* I pledged several months ago to keep you updated on significant news regarding the school district budget because these financial matters affect you and your family.
*
* With that in mind, I'm happy to announce the proposal that was offered during negotiations today (Friday, Sept. 12, 2008). The School Board has authorized me to offer “level” increases. For most eligible employees that will amount to an approximately 2 percent increase. If ratified by employees and approved by the School Board, the increases would apply to employees represented by the Classroom Teachers Association (CTA) and the Hillsborough School Employees Federation (HSEF). These increases also will be offered to non-represented employees.
*
* I know the proposal falls short of the raise packages we have offered in the recent past, when we were able to provide some of the largest percentage increases in the state. However, on the national, state, and local level, the economy is struggling and budget cuts have become a common occurrence.
*
* As we've seen in recent months, many school districts and local governments have had to resort to layoffs or salary reductions. Because of careful planning and fiscal restraint, we have been able to avoid such measures. However, we have been forced to make significant cuts and to trim our workforce through attrition and the delaying of new hires. Our financial situation remains a cause for concern. We expect more cuts in the future.
*
* How can we afford to offer raises now? Until this time, during negotiations we have offered no salary increases. That was less a negotiations tactic and more of a recognition that the district cannot afford to overextend itself with recurring costs in an uncertain budget year. However, our continued belt tightening and the recent removal of Amendment 5 from the ballot, have improved our financial position. Amendment 5, also known as the “tax swap,” would have eliminated a major source of funding for schools, with no clear plan for replacing the revenue. The School Board opposed that amendment and cheered its removal from the ballot.
*
* The School Board and I have been approaching our budget decisions very conservatively, and we will continue to do so, while keeping in mind that our employees are counting on us as they struggle to balance their own household budgets. We are confident that we can offer these salary increases to our employees and maintain a balanced budget.

=

SPT Editors Goof Off in School Board Recommendations



9/14/2008

Columbia Journalism Review
Journalism Building
2950 Broadway
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027

Gentlepeople:

I enclose for your review data for a journalism problem that the readers of the St. Petersburg Times have. My husband of fifty-one years is one such reader: he wakes up at 4 a.m. to read the paper from cover to cover. My telling him that such reading habits will make him dumb has done no good.

The SPT editors who review candidates for the school boards of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties don’t do their homework and find out the facts about the candidates. They goof off and don’t know what they are talking about because they throw editorial darts at a board of the names and recommend a random candidate, citing some vacuous template reason that does not coincide with the reality of the candidate’s worth or lack of it.

These press muckety-mucks who make the recommendations also do not appear to consult with the reporters who cover the school boards. These reporters know what is going on and could clue in the editors if the latter would stoop to the maneuver of talking to their people who watch the actions of the board members and candidates minutely. I also suspect that their feckless, timid editors rein in the on-site reporters and make them write innocuous accounts of school-board outrages against school students, teachers, and voter interests. I infer the editors want to keep in the good graces of the pols whom their reporters cover so as not to disturb their social position amongst the political thugs they cover.

Such editorial slovenliness about editorial duty to the community of its readers confirms the justice of newspapers’ decline and replacement by the blogs and online news outlets. These blare out the truth in raw rhetoric that readers rejoice in. The print editors don’t care about this disappearance of the print press because they are old guys (yes, guys: look at the sexist banners that cite the high-level people in the news sweat lodge) who are close to pension time and so it’s no concern of theirs that the industry they earned their pensions in is going down the tube and to hell with the young journalists. Let them eat cake.

I append my complaint to the Pulitzer committee for naming the publisher of the St. Petersburg Times, Paul Tash, to its committee. I append as well a copy of a speech given by Le Tash in which basic grammar and punctuation errors proliferate and in which he maintains the stale Indiana rube stance of an innocent spawned in the middle-America farmlands who somehow ascended to the pinnacle of newspaper imminence by becoming the publisher of the SP Times.

I can tell you how he pulled off this feat despite his lack of acquaintance with basic grammar and punctuation in an industry the chief tool of which is the English language. He was the sycophant of the previous publisher, Andrew Barnes, who used to maintain the fiction that he is a species of outback Cincinnatus by having a retreat in the outlying rural areas of St. Petersburg, where he worked, in which its Erskine Caldwell denizens bedizen their yards with rusting jitneys and poor-white trash artifacts. Barnes is too innocent of Southern culture to know what these artifacts mean. I bet he has not read a book of Faulkner.

I attended Columbia forty years ago when my husband had a job in NYC. I was too unsophisticated then to know that Columbia had a journalism gauntlet through which national journalists had to tread. Now that I do, I offer our local publisher and Pulitzer-committee member for your examination as to his responsibility of using the paper’s power in recommending local political candidates—especially school-board members—with informed discretion.

Lee Drury De Cesare

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708

tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

Grammargrinch.blogspot.com

c: to all spt proletariat that the site reveals